


Ephemeral as you are

by Tibtew



Category: Kagerou Project, Mekakucity Actors
Genre: Comfort, F/M, M/M, Nightmares (but really vague), Other, Secret Santa, Spooning, it's been months and this is all I have to show for it, this is for my fellow saeru simps, this is so off-brand I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:07:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28327272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tibtew/pseuds/Tibtew
Summary: God, he was so weird. You hoped things would be over soon just so you wouldn't have to see his face anymore.
Relationships: Reader/Snake of Clearing Eyes, Snake of Clearing Eyes/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	Ephemeral as you are

The experiment had been a success, after all.

Here he was, sat in the base of the “Mekakushi Dan” (truly, an asinine name for this group of worthless brats)...and for once, not a single thing was amiss amongst their incessant chatter.  
Not a single trace of that bloodstained image, an image he'd become so familiar with, an image that marked fearful partings and the return of that fateful summer day, was present.  
Not yet.  
No, the Snake of Clearing Eyes had other plans for this timeline. Something _fun_ , first - an appetizer for suffering, if you will.

Hope.

This time, he had taken the liberty of befriending them (what an absurd notion), hell, of _joining_ them in their ridiculous endeavours.  
Of course, something like that meant robbing Konoha of ever meeting them, and of ever tasting betrayal from his only father figure (he thought back to Kenjirou's body in the lab, too soon left lifeless, and grinned), but he didn't mind all that much.  
It wasn't that he loathed that sort of despair, or that it no longer brought him any joy, but...  
But Clearing Eyes was becoming so, so terribly _bored_. 

Why not have a little fun then, he thought - delude them into thinking they could mean anything to him in the first place, only to crush that notion under the inevitability of their pathetic fates.

"Kuroha!" a voice, Concealing Eyes as he had identified it, called from the kitchen, “Dinner's ready! Care to join us?"  
"Of course." he replied coolly, and took pride in how, even calm, his voice overpowered their ceaseless noise so effortlessly.

Opening Eyes (or "Ene", as she had taken to calling herself), distracted by the sound, gave him a cold look, the only person unwilling to play along with his little charade.  
Well...the only person besides (his eyes drifted towards the door)...ah, but he wasn’t even certain of that yet.  
He was sure she’d be joining this time, of course...but all else was a matter of chance, he figured. That much definitely made things interesting.

He looked around, surveying the dull view of kids’ heads, and grinned.  
Ah, poor, poor Konoha...all these friends, just as he'd desired, and not a single second to share with them. "Kuroha" truly did enjoy being the villain.  
Maybe, he entertained, something like this was even more monstrous than what would come later...ah, but then-  
A knock. It seemed she had arrived. 

Well then: time to welcome the newest actor upon the stage, even for a little while. 

~^~

"Kuroha" he'd introduced himself as. Somehow, you didn't really believe him.  
Honestly, you wished they'd give you more of a notice on matters like these!

You'd been returning from a brief shopping trip when you stopped in the doorway upon hearing all that commotion.  
Not that it was unusual of the Mekakushi Dan - this strange, ragtag group you found yourself entangled with - to be loud, especially not in the evenings, when Kido would get dinner cooking and an argument would inevitably break out somewhere along the line, but…  
This seemed...different. More boisterous.  
A new member, you had concluded - because really, what else would get them going so much? It's not like there was anything to really _do_ around here.

Even as you entered wordlessly, you could feel his cold yellow eyes upon you in an instant, like a predator locking onto its prey.  
Still. Waiting.  
You wondered what exactly he was waiting for, and instinctively shuddered at the thought.  
Initially, you weren't sure why. He didn't _look_ frightening - not in the traditional sense, at least.  
He was tall, taller than his apparent age would've made you think, and well-built too, a dark, unkempt mop of hair enclosed by grey headphones. If anything, he was just...bizarre.

But...he looked a bit familiar, didn't he?  
You couldn't quite place it at first, but the more you thought about it, the more certain you became that you had seen someone like this before.

Right...that time, when you still played that shooter ( _Dead Bullet, was it?_ )... You'd played with someone like that, many times before.  
That person you had seen online - their handle was something similar, wasn't it..."Konoha", you recalled...  
You still remembered what they looked like. A taste in fashion that... _unique_ was simply unmistakable.  
Regardless, this guy right here seemed the spitting image of Konoha's avatar from all those years back - but you swore there was something off about it.

Ah, yes: Konoha had never worn so much black, had he?

Your musings were interrupted by everyone else noticing your arrival, acknowledging your existence to varying degrees, then quickly getting up to help Kido set the table for dinner or just inquire about your outing, amongst other things.  
Only he remained still, sprawled out on one of the couches as if he'd already owned the place or something. The sight made you...uneasy.  
Momo was first to answer your thoughts.  
"Ah, that guy's just joined." she'd explained awkwardly, as if she wasn't quite sure of anything surrounding him herself, "You should probably introduce yourself before dinner."  
"He'll be staying in your room, after all." Kido added from the kitchen, and you couldn't hide the sudden mix of surprise and betrayal on your face.  
( _In the background, you thought you heard him snicker._ )

Catching your expression, Momo gave an apologetic laugh, murmured something or other about him insisting, and disappeared into the kitchen to help the others.  
Great. This was just great.  
An encounter like this could've only come from an anime or something, you languidly thought.

You watched her leave the room, a hopeless feeling sinking into your chest already as a lazy sigh emanated from behind. Right behind.  
_Shit_. He was standing right behind you, wasn't he?!

You took a step forward, a step away, turning to take in his expression.

"Kono...ha..?"

It took a minute or two for you to realise how wide his grin had grown, in the confused, slightly awkward silence that ensued.  
You hated the way that smile sat on his face - something about it just felt off, like the expressions he was pulling simply didn't belong on a human, like it was some other being trying to pilot a skinsuit.  
The face he was making didn't seem like something, Konoha, if given human thought and form, could _ever_ make.

He sniggered, coy, and walked towards you, lifting your chin with one finger. The action only made your jaw tighten in irritation, and you watched as something almost like frustration flitted across his face, as if searching for something.

"I see...so it's manifested in _you_ , has it?"  
The question seemed more like a statement, almost, and you drew back, brows furrowed. Talk about an odd way to pick up the conversation.  
Even his voice was wrong, you thought - like it didn't belong to a human at all, but something close enough to play pretend, the hiss of a snake given discernible form.

"You're not..."  
"No." he affirmed, though didn't elaborate.  
Strange. You swore he seemed like the type of guy who liked hearing his own voice a little too much. Maybe he was just messing with you.  
For a second, you allowed yourself to think you were just imagining things, that "Konoha" never existed in the first place. But then...

"Ah, but were you hoping to see him, perhaps?"  
The confusion on your face must've reached some sort of hilarious breaking point for him or something, because he pulled away (When had he leaned so close in the first place?! You fought the urge to squirm.) and let out a startling laugh, a laugh that only continued as you felt dread creep into your expression.  
"Oh, you're hopeless! Excellent." he chuckled, straightening, waving a hand idly as if to brush off any remaining giggles.  
He extended a hand.

"Kuroha. A pleasure."

 _God, was everything this guy did so weird?!_  
You took his hand, if only so he wouldn't take it himself, and hesitantly gave an introduction.  
"Right, right..." he repeated, saying your name a few times in a way that sent an...odd feeling coursing through you; then he stopped, as if remembering something he didn't really need remembering.  
"Ah, but of course...you'll just disappear the next time, right? A shame."  
He didn't sound all that bothered.

Any certainty within you plummeted to rock bottom once more, and you couldn't suppress the exasperated groan that had been creeping in your throat any longer.  
God, this guy was so, so weird. You hoped the others were done already so you wouldn’t have to be alone with him anymore.

~^~

Strangely enough, he seemed relatively...normal - when talking to the others, at least.  
Yeah, there was still that underlying sense of...wrongness to almost everything he did, and a general snideness to every word - but he seemed calmer...more restrained, almost.  
Amazing. So he was singling you out, it seemed.  
Well, _that_ comforted you a _great_ deal.

Night had fallen shortly, and now you were lying in bed, him on the opposite end.  
Both of you refused to sleep on the floor (This was _your_ room, after all - no matter how uneasy he made you, you weren't just giving up your one bastion of comfort like that!), and so this arrangement had been decided on, a pillow staunchly separating the two halves of the bed like some sort of half-assed border.  
Fine. You could take this for a couple of nights, at least.

You heard him stir from the other side (He hadn't even changed clothes, or taken his headphones off, merely opting to remove his boots and that overshirt that looked more like an ill-thought-out textiles project), sighing, and buried your face in a spare pillow.  
God. You didn't even want to _think_ about him.  
As the minutes passed, sleep descended on you ( _mercifully_ ). Finally, some peace.  
Or so you would've liked to think.

It didn't take long for you to open your eyes again, and for the mounds in the darkness to turn familiar. Too familiar.  
Pain shot through you as you remembered. You always hated remembering.  
You were supposed to die that day, weren't you? Just like everyone else had.  
The darkness twisted, and you felt your heart twist with it. You wished it'd stop doing that.

~^~

When your eyes opened again, you were facing a clothed back. Clinging to one, to be more specific.

You felt the person you were clinging to stir - and with horror, realised exactly what had taken place.  
You looked over your shoulder: where was that pillow, marker of boundaries ( _Probably on the ground somewhere, sacrificed as you'd tossed and turned in your slumber_ )?  
Your arm was trapped, trapped beneath him, so clearly you'd been stuck like this for a while - had he noticed before you?!  
With panic ( _First night with this awful guy and you spoon him in your sleep - great going, he definitely seemed like the type to let you live it down_ ) you tugged, trying to free your arm, when-  
"Ah. Brat. You're awake."  
You froze. There was no mistaking the irritation in his voice.  
Well, at least he seemed just as discomforted by this situation.

He rolled over, allowing you to free your arm, and got up.  
"Really, what _was_ that..." you heard him mumble, though it seemed like he already knew the answer.  
At least you didn't have to make things even more uncomfortable.

~^~

It happened again the next night. You almost considered giving up and sleeping on the floor.

By some miracle, he hadn't brought it up at all for the whole day, only muttering a "you better sleep well this time" - something that sounded more encouraging than threatening, all things considered - before bed.  
Well, surprise surprise, you didn't sleep well - at all - and once the pounding in your head abated and the shadows in the corner of your vision faded, you were stuck facing the back of his shirt again, gripping him like a last-resort lifeline.  
Really, you should've seen this coming. You didn't know why you were so stubborn in the first place.

"Let go of me, brat." he simply stated this time, and you obeyed even before he finished, quietly rolling over onto your other side in a vain attempt to catch some semblance of proper rest before another Dan member inevitably kicked your ass out of bed.  
"If you just prove to be troublesome, I'll almost be glad for your disappearance." you vaguely heard him mumble, but the fatigue and lingering darkness from the night obscured any meaning it may have held.

The next night, you woke up in the midst of it.

The pounding heat, the distant memory of church bells, the image of a serpent swallowing up all you held dear - all of it, switched off the moment you opened your eyes, switching back on the more you adjusted and blinked the tears back.  
You tried not to blink then, tried to even out your breath and silence your throbbing heart. Part of you feared he would hear, and mock you for it.

It was always the same, and it bothered you that it still hurt every time.

You had already clung to him, caught in the throes of your own thoughts, but you pulled away now, rolling over, thinking that if you just stayed awake you wouldn't have to deal with any of this later.  
Yeah...if you just stayed awake, maybe grabbed your phone and something, you could always-

You felt a hand on your shoulder and you stiffened. He was awake.  
"Revealing." he said softly in the darkness, and you wondered how he knew the name Kano had given your ability.  
You turned, gradually. Had he slept at all?

You could read his eyes. How much did it hurt you, he was asking. Rhetorical.  
He seemed to know, but he didn't help you. He always seemed to know everything, but never helped anyone.  
You wondered half-heartedly if a person like that could be blamed for not helping, if they didn't have any good reason to. Part of you wondered if you could give him a reason.  
Because caring about something would do him some good, you figured; because you cared.

Fine. You'd accepted it: you cared.  
Big deal. Caring had always come too easily to you anyway. Adding one more to the list of inevitable disappointments wouldn't change much.

You wanted to explain it, then, what you had gone through. The pounding heat. The bloodstained summer image. How you had...died, you supposed.

You knew if you explained, he would listen, and he would understand as if he'd understood it all before. It frustrated you to no end.  
He said you'd "disappear next time" or something, right? Didn't that _mean_ anything?  
Ah, but _of course_ it did.  
It meant he only had whatever time he had to mess with you however he wanted.

Truthfully, you didn't want to "disappear", whatever that entailed. You at least told him as much, and he sighed scornfully.  
"Ahh...I'm afraid there's no escaping your own fragile existence. Just accept it already, won't you?"  
And then he went silent.

Was that...sympathy, gleaming in his eyes? In the muddied darkness, you weren't quite sure.  
He'd told you to go back to sleep then and whatever sympathy there had been was cloaked in callousness - the sort he seemed rather proud of putting on, too.  
You couldn't help but pity him, almost; you clung to that feeling a little longer to stave off your own thoughts.  
"Go to sleep, brat." he snapped when you gave no indication of listening to him. You wondered where the sudden concern came from.  
But you didn't want to go back there. You told him so in no uncertain terms.  
"...Suit yourself." he eventually murmured, clearly deeming you more trouble than you were worth.  
He rolled back over, muttering to himself. You couldn't quite make out the words.

When sleep did finally arrive and you felt your eyelids grow heavy, part of you instinctively reached for him. He didn't stir.  
You'd never noticed how warm he was; how safe clinging to him really felt, because by the time you'd realised you were clinging to him the danger had always already passed, and the fear was always overtaken by shame.  
Here in the darkness, however, the fear felt far too tangible for anything else to invade.

For a minute or two, neither of you made a sound, just two steady heartbeats keeping the silence at bay. Then:  
"Must you do this every night? It'll become bothersome."  
You calmly replied that he'd wanted you to sleep and if he didn't like the way you went about it, the floor was always an option. If he could be callous, so could you.  
He'd groaned softly at that, more a sound of theatrics than genuine complaint, then fell silent once more. You grabbed onto his shirt to keep him from moving too much.  
Yeah, he was weird, and more than a bit annoying - but he kept the nightmares at bay (however the hell he did it), and that was good enough.  
Besides, you were too tired for things like shame.

~^~

If you had hoped for something like sleep, you were sorely disappointed that night.  
Clinging to him like this, you heard his breaths even out; felt his chest rise slower and slower; heard him, very softly and very gradually, begin to snore.  
That was fine, you supposed - even if it was a little odd to actually see someone like him sleep, it's not as if you needed him awake to assuage the shadows.  
And you stayed like that for a while, waiting for sleep to take you as well.

But then you'd felt him squirm against your grip, watched him toss, heard the rip of fabric as he clawed at the mattress - and pity had once again found its way into your heart.  
You decided to help him, even just a little.  
"Hey...Kuroha..?" you muttered into the darkness, shaking him slightly.

He didn't respond. You didn't think he was familiar with that name in this state.

You shook him again.  
"Hey, wake up."  
Still nothing. You tried turning him so that he was facing you at least.  
His eyes had flown open in the meantime, but didn't seem to recognise you. Whatever he was seeing, he sure as hell wasn't liking it though, pupils turned pinpricks even despite the darkness, expression almost... _frightened_.  
You felt him cling to you, and the fear that you might end up as his side of the mattress seemed to have, flared up within you.

You decided to turn to other methods before that could happen.  
"Revealing Eyes", Kano had called it. It allowed you to, even just for a moment, see someone as they saw themselves. That's what you always figured you were seeing, at least.

In that single, fearful instance, you cupped his cheeks as gently as you could ( _Shit, were your hands shaking? That wouldn't do any good._ ), and let the heat of that summer burn through your stare.

It wasn't anything worth screaming over. It was just kind of... _odd_. Intangible, almost.  
Upon first glance it appeared to be a normal-ish snake, maybe a bit larger and...darker than usual. Than in itself wasn't too troublesome.  
But the more you looked, the more clear the image tried to become - and the more uncertain you became.  
It seemed to flicker, between something that resembled a snake, a human, and something that looked like neither. It seemed to be none of those, and yet all at once, and then nothing again, as if he couldn't quite decide himself. As if he didn't quite know.  
At last, it settled on something you couldn't quite describe. You didn't think you'd want to describe it all that much, anyway.

You blinked, and the effect broke. His grip on you had loosened, and his face had relaxed, calmed; his eyes seemed more normal, too.  
You held his gaze, and he said nothing. Clearly, he understood.  
"Kuroha..." you eventually muttered - well, you were sure that wasn't his name now, but you doubted he'd tell you anything anyway, "Can we stay like this for a bit longer?"  
There wasn’t much behind that request, you told yourself - he was just calming, that was all.  
He didn't reply, golden eyes just barely making contact with yours in the darkness.  
"Please."

You didn't question the thoughts that may or may not have crossed his mind. You didn't think you could help with any of them anyway.  
When he finally spoke, you could barely hear his voice. 

"Mark my words, brat, you will pay for this."  
His eyes didn't seem all that focused. Neither did anything else about his demeanour.

And when you both woke up in the morning, the arms wrapped around you certainly said otherwise.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're subscribed to me, I apologise for making _this_ show up in your inbox.  
> This was for secret santa on a discord server (they explicitly wanted Kuroha, hence the off-brand naming), and it's probably the most I've written over the span of two days since...ever.  
> I've always wanted to try writing a Saeru x Reader fic for shits and giggles (and also because most of the ones out there are noticeably...lacking), but I did not know things would turn out this way.  
> Uhhhh...merry christmas/whatever holiday you may celebrate, I just hope this year ends soon so I can make "write more" one of my resolutions for 2021.


End file.
